A multimedia theatrical experience at the Carl Cherry Center is a collaborative reflection on female agency in art.

Janice Rocke is a local theater producer, always on the lookout for writers, actors and dancers. In the case of Artista Invisibile, a multimedia theatrical experience by Eclectic Collective, she had “a vision for a live experience that captures historical progress of women in the arts” – from being a model, a muse, to becoming an agent. As an example, Rocke points to Elizabeth Siddal, a 19th-century artists’ model, best known for posing for John Everett Millais’ 1852 painting “Ophelia.” “She wanted to be an artist herself,” Rocke says. “But men wanted to paint her.”

Serious in her pursuit of artistic agency, Rocke was looking to have a “big script” with many collaborators and multiple writers. A group of 11 individuals worked on the project. “I like to give control, to give everybody a lot of space to be creative,” she says. One of the key people behind Artista Invisibile is Rocket Garcia, a Monterey-born nonbinary writer and activist who just returned to the area after five years in Los Angeles. Garcia co-wrote the show, co-directed it and will perform in it.

The result is a script that is at once about violence against women, the Harlem Renaissance, Mexican social justice history and women’s mental health issues. While there’s no plot in the strict sense of the word, there is a main “character” – Rocke’s roommate and friend, local dancer Carrie Rochelle, who guides the audience through the 90-minute experience.

“She is a central figure evolving through the show,” Rocke says.

“What drew me to the project is that it’s about women from different walks of life,” Garcia says. As a nonbinary person, Garcia sees the show as “intersectional” – going beyond a narrow vision of a straight white female artist that grew from the second wave of feminism, but that doesn’t necessarily meet the needs of contemporary art and womanhood. “The show is not about one type of artist,” Garcia says. They invoke artevistas, female artists and activists of the Chicano movement, who were among those who broke stereotypes about femininity and agency.

Defying stereotypes and monopolies of any kind, Artista Invisibile contains “an insane amount of artistic media” – projections, art pieces, poetry, live music and more in what Rocke hopes will be “a profound synthesis.”

ARTISTA INVISIBILE 8pm Fridays and Saturdays, and 3pm Sundays, Nov. 4-13. Carl Cherry Center, 4th and Guadalupe, Carmel. $22. 521-0375, carlcherrycenter.org